The Cross and... - NOT AVAILABLE

OVERVIEW

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Brief Synopsis

The Reverend David Wilkerson, a Pennsylvania country preacher, comes to New York to aid a group of teenaged gang members on trial for the murder of a young boy; but when he enters a courtroom to beg permission to meet the defendants, he is seized and frisked by suspicious court officers. After failing to help the accused youngsters, Wilkerson, refusing to be discouraged, remains in New York in the hope of reaching other slum victims. In time, he meets both Nicky Cruz, the leader of a Puerto Rican gang called the Mau Maus, and Nicky's hated enemy Abdullah, the leader of a black gang known as the Bishops. Through his friendship with a homeless black girl, Little Bo, Wilkerson visits the Mau Maus' headquarters and learns of a forthcoming rumble with the Bishops to determine control of the neighborhood. Despite Wilkerson's sincerity, the teenagers look upon him with open distrust. Nicky demonstrates his hostility by spitting on Wilkerson; but the preacher responds by assuring the boy that God will never forsake him. When the rumble results in the death of one of the Mau Maus, Wilkerson becomes more determined than ever to win over the gang members. Then, because the Bishops disrupt the funeral services of the dead youth, another gang fight breaks out, and Nicky suffers a near-fatal beating. Wilkerson visits him and is again rejected, though he senses that he is making some headway toward Nicky's eventual conversion. But the reverend receives another setback when the gangs' leaders vote to fight to the death. Actual violence is curtailed, however, by Wilkerson's persuasive preaching and by his previous assistance in curing Nicky's ex-girl friend Rosa of heroin addiction. Encouraged by this initial success, Wilkerson vows to organize youth rehabilitation centers in all of New York's slum districts.